“Charter Schools Unsupervised” by the Sun Sentinel is a great interactive site. It has maps, charts and videos that explain how laws need to change. Fifty-six charters have closed in the past five years alone. Florida can do better. The Senate education bill does require that charter advisory boards be independent of their management companies. It also requires background checks for operators. It is about time. These are steps in the right direction, but much more needs to be done.
Author Archive: Sue Legg
Traveling
I will be traveling next week. Please keep an eye out for information to share. Send it to me. I will post it when I return.
Florida League of Women Voters Positions on School Choice
Some of you have been asking about the Florida League positions on school choice. The positions were formally adopted at the convention last year. They will be included in Study and Action when it is updated. The League strongly opposes tax credit scholarships. The Florida League supports Florida’s constitution provision for a uniform, efficient, high quality public school system. While charter schools are legally public schools, the League supports stronger district management and oversight to make them better conform to constitutional requirements. Specific principles and positions are listed below.
Let Your Voices Be Heard on HB 1145
This bill HB 1145 has measures that you need to know. The Florida House version is working out administrative kinks. The Senate version will be heard tomorrow. Learn what is at stake.
New York Impasse Ends Cuomo’s Tax Credit Scholarship Support
horse trading
In a political move to pass immigration reform in New York, the Governor linked private school tax credit scholarships to Dream Act bills. The trade off would make undocumented students eligible for college scholarships in exchange for tax credit scholarships for poor and wealthy families.
A bipartisan coalition failed, and the Governor announced this week he would withdraw budget funding for both programs. Reading the article in Capital magazine is like reading a political case study.
Florida Legislature Addresses Bilingual Students
From Rosa Castro Feinberg
Many of our students speak more than one language. There are two bills in the Florida legislature that may affect them.
Some states recognize their achievement. Some recognize that being equally proficient in different languages is difficult.
What can or should Florida do? You can make your voice heard.
Charter School Facilities: Your Money, Their Property
by Sue Legg, Pat Drago, and Ruth Melton
Charter schools are public schools, right? Well yes, but they are owned and managed by private companies. Most of their facilities are privately owned. If they close, the private company retains the buildings.
Charter schools should receive the same amount of money as district schools, right? Seems fair until you think about it.
Let’s think about it. We need to, there is a bill in the legislature.
“Togetherness”, the Anti-Community’s Community?
Divided Community
Now television is in the charter fray. In this review of the series “Togetherness”, Joshua Leibner in Salon magazine describes its charter school subplot. Are neighborhood schools the “bogeyman for all of society’s ills?, he asks. He wonders if for white people of their education and class, all the education reform nonsense might feel right for minority kids–but just not for their children? The setting for the series is in Eagle Rock in Los Angeles. This is a real place where both Leibner and the show’s producers actually live. Is the show fact or fiction? Continue reading
Resegregation in Delaware. Why?
The ACLU has filed suit in Delaware. Why is this happening in our schools? What does the ACLU propose as a remedy?
Read about the causes of resegregation in Delaware. The choices people are making have consequences.
Sent by Alibina Burn, Delaware
Facing the Future
by Krista Soboh
I received this post when we were just launching the blog. I liked it, and I saved it.
Now our posts have greater scope, but I believe we still are most concerned with the here and now. After all, we have to manage the present in order to have a reasonable future.
Krista suggests we have to define the problems facing our schools, not the current issues, but those that are relevant to the world our children will confront. My kids talk about the ‘skill sets’ they need for whatever job comes up. They expect change, not careers. They are prepared.Continue reading